OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
So, the world's largest Nuclear Power Plant once again just got a bit bigger.
Bruce Power announced an uprate to 6,550MWe on October 14th. Unit 1 had recently been bumped to 816MWe, so with other "tweaks", as expected, output has been progressively increasing.
What was surprising however, was that Mike Rencheck, who is the CEO, announced that the 7,000MWe target would be met by 2030, moving it closer by 3 years (was originally 2033), and he said 7,000MWe and BEYOND. So they've upped the ante on site capacity now. Clearly, they are feeling confident.
For those who may not have seen my previous threads, Bruce Nuclear is the world's largest operating nuclear power plant. There's a larger plant in Japan, but it isn't operating. Bruce houses 8x CANDU units, all with 480 fuel channels, 13 bundles per channel, which have the highest thermal rating of any nuke in our fleet at 2,832MWth.
Bruce has been running on a 5% derate since the late 90's when there was some concern raised about a fuel channel failure taxing the safety systems of their single loop cooling design. There have been a few mitigation mechanisms employed, which allowed them to get to the 5% derate figure (it was significantly higher before that) but they have been working on a special fuel bundle design with their supplier, Cameco, in hopes to eliminate the derates entirely. That, and there may be some cooling system design changes being made as part of their massive MCR refurbishment project, currently underway.
Darlington, which is our newest plant, has 4x878MWe units, but has lower thermal capacity than Bruce (12 bundles per channel, 480 channels). Bruce, at 100%FP would be able to do at minimum 880MWe, perhaps 890. Darlington has a two-loop cooling system design, so each pair of boilers is separate, which is not the case at Bruce. However, since all of the boilers are currently being replaced as part of the MCR, there is opportunity to potentially revise that, though I'm unsure if that is actually taking place.
I figure we'll be 860-870 on the A units once the MCR is done and 880-890 on the B units, so that's a range of 6,960 to 7,040MWe.
Bruce Nuclear produces more than 30% of Ontario's electricity, a figure which will progressively increase as these uprates are performed and site output increases. Once the refurbishments and uprates are completed, the site will be able to produce north of 55TWh per year.
Bruce Power announced an uprate to 6,550MWe on October 14th. Unit 1 had recently been bumped to 816MWe, so with other "tweaks", as expected, output has been progressively increasing.
What was surprising however, was that Mike Rencheck, who is the CEO, announced that the 7,000MWe target would be met by 2030, moving it closer by 3 years (was originally 2033), and he said 7,000MWe and BEYOND. So they've upped the ante on site capacity now. Clearly, they are feeling confident.
For those who may not have seen my previous threads, Bruce Nuclear is the world's largest operating nuclear power plant. There's a larger plant in Japan, but it isn't operating. Bruce houses 8x CANDU units, all with 480 fuel channels, 13 bundles per channel, which have the highest thermal rating of any nuke in our fleet at 2,832MWth.
Bruce has been running on a 5% derate since the late 90's when there was some concern raised about a fuel channel failure taxing the safety systems of their single loop cooling design. There have been a few mitigation mechanisms employed, which allowed them to get to the 5% derate figure (it was significantly higher before that) but they have been working on a special fuel bundle design with their supplier, Cameco, in hopes to eliminate the derates entirely. That, and there may be some cooling system design changes being made as part of their massive MCR refurbishment project, currently underway.
Darlington, which is our newest plant, has 4x878MWe units, but has lower thermal capacity than Bruce (12 bundles per channel, 480 channels). Bruce, at 100%FP would be able to do at minimum 880MWe, perhaps 890. Darlington has a two-loop cooling system design, so each pair of boilers is separate, which is not the case at Bruce. However, since all of the boilers are currently being replaced as part of the MCR, there is opportunity to potentially revise that, though I'm unsure if that is actually taking place.
I figure we'll be 860-870 on the A units once the MCR is done and 880-890 on the B units, so that's a range of 6,960 to 7,040MWe.
Bruce Nuclear produces more than 30% of Ontario's electricity, a figure which will progressively increase as these uprates are performed and site output increases. Once the refurbishments and uprates are completed, the site will be able to produce north of 55TWh per year.
